Thursday, June 5, 2014

Advice on Southern Sisters Series or should it be Partying on the Plantation Series?



Advice on Southern Sisters Series or should it be Partying on the Plantation Series?

Your opinion requested!!! I need your help.

I have written a series of books based on two Southern sisters who to the untrained eye might possibly resemble my sister, Sylvia, and me. This series began as a short story inspired by my garden club. Our then president, I think it was Martha Nix, though it could have been Gayle McLeod Parsons or Abby Margolies, asked our group what they wanted to learn about in our programs. The usual answers came around until Mary Ann Earnest spoke up and said, "I want to know how to meet a man while gardening!" We all laughed. But her comment "took seed" so to speak and I wrote the short story, "The Man in a Muddle in the Middle of the Mums" with his Johnny Cash voice (that drew her closer), his Richard Gere buns (girls will be girls and do notice), and Mel Gibson eyes (almost as good as Paul Newman). Since I was in charge of the program on wildflowers, it fit right in! Other organizations asked for me to read it as well.

One day I was stopped at the intersection of the street on which I live and have traveled nearly every day of my life since I grew up just three blocks from where I now live in Dothan. I recalled the day the FedEx truck ran a stop light at that very spot and nearly hit Joe (my husband of then 35 years and me. Fortunately, he was distracted by another car and was not sitting on ready when the light turned green.  My mind began meandering and I thought to myself, what would I do if something happened to Joe? Immediately the thought popped into my mind, my sister Sylvia and I would live together. Of course, she's married to Tom and that could be a problem. So, the writer in me put the two incidents and short story together and suddenly in my imaginary world two sisters, much like us, get together in widowhood suddenly rudderless without the men who have dominated their lives and try to create a new life.

So, we have TWO SISTERS, Dabney Palmer Rankin and Dr. Sophia Palmer Ransom  (similar to Ann George's Southern Sisters) involved in MYSTERIES (like Murder She Wrote) only on a plantation (WAVERLY) in PALMER, COX COUNTY, ALABAMA, where using their grandfather's plantation as a gimmick they convince a bunch of tipsy Yankees in New Orleans looking for new shows to let them host a show on the DISHING IT NETWORK (amazingly similar to the food network) only THEY CANNOT COOK!!!!! Somehow awkward, fluffy Dabney Palmer Rankin acquires a bevy of beaus ...and an arch enemy, a serial killer.  She constantly finds her life in danger (kind of like the road runner and Wylie Coyote). In addition to all of this the two sisters discover the confusion of heing and sheing in the boomer years and the wonder of the bonds of friendship one acquires along the way. Oh, yes, in addition to everything else, Dabney Palmer Rankin discovers that the accident has triggered genetic memories where the past intrudes into the future. But, being considered crazy to begin with, this isn't something she is inclined to share.

Now, where do you come in? I have decided that with the book business the way it is, I am going to go through Createspace to publish these novels. Book 1 will be Creme de Cassis and Murder, Book 2 is Mint Juleps and Murder and Book 3 is Mayans, Muscadines and Murder. Eventually there will be a cookbook.

So my questions are:

1. What should I title the series?

Ann George has passed away and the series name SOUTHERN SISTERS is available. Or should I call it SOUTHERN BOOMER SISTERS? Or the PARTYING ON THE PLANTATION series? In marketing the books, which would catch the eye of the reader (consider yourself the target audience). The title in these situations would read Creme de Cassis and Murder: A Southern Sisters Mystery or Creme de Cassis and Murder: Book I of Partying on the Plantation or Creme de Cassis and Murder: A Southern Boomer Sisters novel.

2. Then comes pricing. What do you think is an enticing price for an e-book? In order to get the 70 percent royalty option, e books must satisfy the following set of requirements: The author or publisher-supplied list price must be between $2.99 and $9.99.

For a 184 page black and white book, you set your USD list price at $8.99. A customer purchases your book on Amazon.com and a book is printed to fulfill that order.
Sales Channel % = $3.60
Fixed Charge = $0.85
Per Page Charge = $2.20
Your Royalty = $2.34

3. In publishing through Create Space you can have an ISBN number that lists Create Space as the publisher, or you can set up your own publishing entity. I am thinking of forming a publishing entity, Southern Boomer Books, and purchasing a group of ISBN numbers. Does it matter to the purchaser of the novel if the novel is published by Createspace or a traditional publisher? (In other words would a different publisher name entice you into purchasing the novel?)

4. Would any of you, my writer friends, be interested in participating with  me in publishing under the Southern Boomer Book aegis. If so, message me and we can discuss this. (I think Deb Smith did this with Belle Books, but her leading ladies are much younger.)

Thanks for reading this far. And thanks ahead of time for any input you can share. I look forward to hearing your thoughts!

No comments:

Post a Comment

I would love to hear from you!